Ski company recommendations please

[Kentmumof4]

We are new to ski-ing and thinking about going over Christmas 2015. We have 4 children (ouch!) so desperately need to keep the price down. We want to fly (not bothered where to) and would prefer something catered.

Can Mumsnetters recommend (a) a resort and (b) a cheap ski company please?

Many thanks.

We went with Crystal last week & they were fine. Our outbound flight from LGW was delayed for 5 hours due to the snow situation in the Alps the weekend after Christmas, but we arrived safe & sound in the early hours of Sunday morning. Reps had sorted out lift passes for collection as soon as we arrived and the hotel even laid on a midnight buffet (for those no too tireed to eat it!) as we had missed our evening meal.

Had the best week's skiing ever & no complaints whatsoever about Crystal

It should be a good time to travel with Crystal as we are receiving lots of messages promising review, etc!

It's not really about the reps though. How many 18year olds would have a hope of doing a great job left in sole charge for 24hours completely on their own of 350 angry hungry cold disorientated adults and children with no beds blankets or hot water and nothing but empty vacuous statements from their managers over their ipad (many of those statements contradicting what Crystal staff in England were saying on the phone to the same angry customers). Not many, and those few would be whittled down further after two nights without sleep.

"Fair weather" sums it up exactly.

£3500 for catered accommodation for six of you? Um, I doubt you'll get that during one of the five peak weeks that fall during the school holidays. In term-time (particularly Jan or Mar), you can get some good deals if you're prepared to pull them out of school, or to keep costs down as much as possible I'd advise driving and self-catering. If you go to a less-well-known resort or a small satellite to a big ski area you can save £££ on accommodation, but you're going to have a big bill for lift passes and ski lessons with six of you.

There was a really good 24-page page spread about family ski holidays in Family Traveller magazine Sept/Oct edition, if you can get hold of one. Their top tip for saving a packet if you're all beginners was to go to Bulgaria, Romania or Andorra - apparently they are very cheap compared the big-name Alpine resorts - so you might want to take a look. I know some of the big name tour operators like Inghams, Crystal, etc do them if you want a package.

can you get high enough in Bulgaria, Romania and Andorra though? I suppose you pay for height....

I haven't been here myself, but a friend went here with her family on their first ski trip. There isn't a huge ski area, but you shouldn't need that the first time. She said it was great, the hotel is right next to the ski area, it was reasonably quiet, the rooms and food were good, and I think she went back again the following year. Could be a possibility?

I too would have reservations about Bulgaria et al especially early and late season . Friends went to Slovenia last Christmas and had no snow all week , some guests got so desperate they went on 4 hour trips to ski but even then found it wasn't good enough conditions to be worthwhile. There also wasn't much else on offer to entertain.

Would never recommend Bulgaria. Sorry, I know some are fans, but at peak times the infrastructure cannot cope and also snow cover is not reliable.
Slovenia much much nicer but very un-snow-sure.

Can you take them out of school?

If not easter in a high self-drive french resort is a far better bet.

Is it true that France is the cheapest Alpine destination?

France cheap? No! Of course it depends which resort you're talking about as the big names are always more expensive than the ones you might not have heard of, but France as a destination is not cheap.

Just thought I'd mention re: Bulgaria that there was a letter in today's Telegraph travel section recommending Bansko in Bulgaria as cheap with a charming town centre and more snow-sure than other Bulgarian resorts. Where to Ski & Snowboard (which is an excellent publication that I've never found to be factually wrong), also gives this resort a reasonable write-up. The only caveat seems to be the main gondola up the mountain, which is apparently a hideous bottle-neck at opening time.

P.S. The operator mentioned was Balkan Holidays.

Many thanks everyone who has replied - I've looked at Crystal and Inghams, so I'll also look at some of the other companies people recommended. We have been told by others that Easter is cheaper and yes, we will have to self cater. Lots to think about........!

kent I just went to the Balkan Holidays website and put in rough details for two adults and four children and I found half-board accommodation for under £2k for Easter this year inc. flights from Gatwick and transfers. There are also B&B and SC options for roughly the same price, but I thought the half-board was particularly good value and might bring the overall cost to within your budget. HTH.

If you go at Easter make sure you go somewhere high.

We did La Plagne Easter 2013 and there were no problems with snow as it's quite high, although obviously that's not a guarantee!

We were self catering through Crystal and stayed at the Lauze Apartments which were fine - cramped of course but in fairly good condition and no problems at all. I think it came to around £3.5K including lift passes and ski school for two older children and childcare for the younger two (i.e. the middle one did ski school and afternoon childcare, the youngest full time childcare and the oldest ski school only) And skis/boots for four of us too. No ski school for the adults but we did book a few private lessons not included in that total.

That price was for five of us, I've had a baby since and of course there's inflation. Hopefully that should give you a bit of an idea of the sort of total price involved though.

As an aside, credit to Crystal. I just emailed them to add something onto our booking for New Year. I emailed them at 9.50pm on a Sunday. 20 minutes later they'd sorted it and replied! Wow.

And yes, I totally agree - it probably doesn't matter how good the rep is when faced with Snowmageddon and no or conflicting information from those higher up. Who probably didn't have a clue either. Not defending all the employees as I'm sure some could have done better, but I bet most did their very best. It's a tough market right now and bad PR is never great so hopefully lessons will be learned.

Is anybody travelling through Liverpool Airport this season?

Go at Easter. Christmas is one of the most expensive weeks of the season, Europeans go then. At least there'll be snow left if you go high. Christmas can be iffy too despite being pricey. Even then, in school holidays, sounds low for a catered chalet. I'd say look at Austrian hotels in some of the higher resorts.

I agree that Easter is a better bet than Xmas - for the reasons mentioned and also that there is an expectation that Xmas should be a joyous time - can be more of an anxious time if you are looking at snow reports of no snow, and paying through the nose for it! At least if there is no snow at Easter the days are longer and warmer.

We're doing New Year next year but it will probably be the only time we'll ever do it - just for the novelty really after feeling we "wasted" Christmas sitting at home doing nothing this year. And the year before. And the year before that..

Would definitely recommend Easter somewhere highish. It can get a bit slushy in the afternoons compared to earlier in the year, but it's still absolutely fine.